670 MESMERISM. 



wonderful for belief. I must be excused for not believing, till I have 

 seen these things. Those who have read the history, and seen a 

 little, of human nature, well know what deceptions have been prac- 

 tised upon the most wary ; how long it has been impossible to 

 detect the cheat ; how bold and marvellous have been the im- 

 positions ; and yet that at last the truth has come out, the im- 

 postor been covered with shame and the credulous believer with 

 ridicule. Human testimony has been given to all kinds of ab- 

 surdities and impossibilities in all ages, and may always be ob- 

 tained from ignorance, superstition, enthusiasm, or interest, to 

 any amount for any prodigy. It may be sometimes difficult to say 

 what is contrary to the laws of nature and impossible ; but the 

 wonders of mesmerism are so astounding, and our experience of 

 deception so abundant, that I find it more rational to suspend my 

 belief than to admit them. Indeed, the most zealous mesmeriser 

 must allow that deception on the part of the patient has fre- 

 quently been detected ; that women have appeared to be in so 

 deep a mesmeric sopor that they have borne impressions of 

 melted wax without the least agitation of countenance, and yet 

 the whole has been proved an imposture : nay, that collusion 

 between both parties has been discovered. We have seen that 

 the same prodigies have been recounted' as occurring in ordinary 

 ecstacy and somnambulism as from mesmerism. 



No one will allege that deception must have been impracticable, 

 who knows the tricks performed by Asiatic and African jug- 

 glers?: and no one will allege that frequently no motive for de- 

 ception was possible, who remembers that, besides interest, and 

 even against interest and comfort, the desire to excite attention 

 in ill conducted minds, and to excite attention or even simply 

 to deceive in hysterical disease, is often intense ; and no one will 



E They will not only make a branch blossom before your eyes, but a seed 

 spring up into a tree, and the tree bear fruit ; throw one end of a long chain 

 into the air, where it remains as if fixed, and send a dog up it, which disappears 

 as soon as he has reached the other end : they will take the form of a cube, 

 which then rises into the air, remains stationary over the heads of the spectators, 

 and descends again ; sit in the air four feet from the ground, one hand and arm 

 being held up, the outer edge of the other resting on a crutch, while its fingers 

 deliberately count beads; and will cause unblemished boys or women, or pregnant 

 women, to see in ink the figure of any dead or absent individual that a third 

 person may name. See Mr. Hunter, 1. c. p. 284. sqq. ; and Mr. Lane's recent 

 work on Egypt. 



